joela wrote:Melee for warrior types is kind of neat. You get one of those wacky dice to roll w/ your d20 when you roll to hit. The number of sides goes up every "X" amount of levels. It reminded me of the wild dice in Savage Worlds a bit. Except w/ this system you actually added the two together.

Joseph had just come up w/ a new mechanic for the fighters as well. If you were descriptive enough in your attack, wanted some type of cool outcome (not on the scale of critical) and if you rolled above a certain number on your extra dice, the DM would come up w/ some mechanical advantage. (e.g. -4 on the monster's next dice roll due to blood in the eye, etc.) It worked out well I think. It may be a bit vague on the differences between a critical and this "cool" affect.

Definitely new. Joseph, could you elaborate on this?

I'm starting up a new thread to answer this question to keep it distinct.

To stress a point that needs to be constantly reinforced: this game is in playtest mode, meaning the rules played today are different from the rules played yesterday. We're trying different ideas at different sessions, trading notes, and tweaking constantly. What you're about to read is the result of that tweaking and not yet final...but definitely moving in the right direction.

Regarding the specific question, something DCC RPG tries to achieve is the feel of pre-D&D sword & sorcery. In practical terms, that means not just interesting magic, but also amazing stunts by warriors.

In game terms, D&D has done this for generations and consistently created complex sub-systems as a result. 3E did it with feats, 4E with powers, prior systems with other mechanisms, and they tend to create complexity and limit the warrior far more than what the literature suggests. Conan, Elric, and John Carter didn't specialize in a single weapon style or a special type of fighting to become they heroes they were. They were good at it all.

What I'm playing with right now is base attack bonus. In traditional D&D, fighter types get +1 at level 1, +2 at level 2, +3 at level 3, and so on. In DCC RPG right now, warriors get d3 at level 1, d4 at level 2, d5 at level 3, and so on.

By "d3 at level 1," I mean the warrior rolls a d3 on every attack roll. This attack is d20+d3+Str mod; next attack is d20+d3+Str; etc. It's not a d3 made at the level-up time, but rolled anew every attack.

The sum of these dice forms the attack roll, which is compared to AC as usual.

If the overall attack roll hits, AND that d3 is a 3 or better, the warrior can perform a cool stunt declared at moment of attack. We call this a Mighty Deed of Arms.

Examples of actual Mighty Deeds performed in play:

* When fighting opponents on a staircase, someone used a sword to stab the opponent and then lever them over the edge of the staircase

* In the same battle, someone attacked the foe's legs to knock them off balance and off the staircase

* When fighting a carven image with eyes that shot laser beams, a warrior used a mace to smash out the carved eyes (and thus disarm the laser beams)

* When fighting a basilisk with a hypnotizing gaze, a warrior tried to stab it in the eye to disable its gaze

* When fighting a flying skull that was out of melee reach, a warrior tried to leap off the back of another character into a flying lunge that connected with the skull in mid-air (very cool)

* When hurling flasks of burning oil at a giant toad, a warrior aimed for the toad's open mouth to throw the oil down its gullet

* In a battle with enemies arrayed in a single-file line, a warrior hurled a javelin straight through the first enemy to spear it to the next opponent in line, entangling the one foe with the corpse of his ally

All the examples above were off-the-cuff maneuvers declared by players in-game at the moment of dice rolling (about half these examples came up in my games over the last two days).

At level 2, the warrior rolls d4 instead of d3. A roll of 3-4 on the d4, on an attack that beats AC overall, allows for a Mighty Deed of Arms.

At level 3, the warrior rolls d5 instead of d3. A roll of 3-5 on the d5, on an attack that beats AC overall, allows for a Mighty Deed of Arms.

And so on. It's fast, it's easy, it's ad hoc, and it allows for amazing in-game fighter maneuvers without the cumbersome elements of feats and prior edition attempts to do this. The rules do include DM guidelines on how to handle classic instances of Mighty Deeds (disarm, parry, bull rush, etc.) but in play so far almost every example I've seen is a really cool unique situation-specific maneuver - exactly what I am going for.

There are a couple other wrinkles, too. The "action die" (as I'm calling the d3, d4, d5, etc.) is also added to damage. (The same roll as for the attack -- if you get a 2 on the die for the attack, you add 2 to the damage.) Warriors with multiple weapons roll one action die and attach it to both weapon attack rolls. Etc.

That sounds really, really freakin awesome One question though: why would a fighter not want to dual wield? It seems to me (from the outside looking in) that a fighter would always choose multiple attacks rather than a 2hander or sword and board, for instance.

My two-weapon mechanic makes use of funky dice. It's contingent on Agility score but, in short, the two-weapon warrior will generally be rolling d16+d14, or perhaps d20+d16, rather than two d20's. Of course they apply the same attack modifier to it, instead of a -4 to the first / -6 to the second like in traditional D&D. So far in playtests the two-weapon fighters are better at fighting peons but less effective at fighting big bad guys (can't hit higher AC's), which is on par with traditional D&D, but the game play goes faster because there's less math (add the same numbers to two dice rolls).

What happens when the Fighters top out on the second die? And when does that usually occur? Around Level 13 or so? Seems like things could get pretty crazy once a Fighter is up in the d10 or d12 range and pulling off Mighty Deeds every round. Traditionally, D&D (pre-4e) just started stacking on extra attacks per round, which sort of gave a place for all those stacking bonuses to go but was kind of a pain in the 3-4 attacks/round range. LotFP does nothing to address this, so Fighters that are at 10th level pretty much insta-hit everything once per round -- which is completely unsatisfactory IMO.

I like this mechanic a lot. But there's something there that's bugging me. I can't put my finger on it. No doubt there are some sparkly rims on those tires but I'm kinda looking at it sideways until I give those tires a good kick. I like it as an alternative to feats and powers. That's for sure. Much better, IMO. Definitely a positive step.

When the playtest becomes available, I'm going to put DCC through it's paces at the high levels -- where I feel D&D has traditionally broken down. My regular group has been itching for some high octane and I'm wanting to see how they'll bend, twist and break things in all directions.

Back in 1982, did ANYONE have a character that legitimately survived past 9th level?

And even that character took three summers of daily play plus weekly during school hours to make it to 9th...

Yay!!!

D&D was never really meant to go past 9th level.

Nice. 7-9 range is perfect, IMO. Please keep it around there. Epic6 was one of my favorite ways to play D&D3e. Having a level cap at 9th or 10th would make my week. It saves so many issues with the bonus creep in 3rd edition.

And in 1982 I think the highest I ever legitimately got was a 5th level Magic-User.

I'd have to dig out my old books to confirm but wasn't 10th level when it was pretty much assumed that you became a lord of some sort, created a stronghold based on your class, attracted followers, protected and taxed your people, settled disputes, i.e. retired?

Let us never forget the immortal words of King Osric the Usurper..."There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child."

SgtPepper76 wrote:I'd have to dig out my old books to confirm but wasn't 10th level when it was pretty much assumed that you became a lord of some sort, created a stronghold based on your class, attracted followers, protected and taxed your people, settled disputes, i.e. retired?

Let us never forget the immortal words of King Osric the Usurper..."There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child."

If my memory serves correctly (and it rarely does), 10th level was "name level" in AD&D. It was also the uppermost level in B/X. BECMI expanded the levels upwards but 10th was the dividing point between roaming around as a Fighter and making a choice between becoming a Knight, Avenger or (can't remember). So it was also BECMI's "name level" to an extent.

smathis wrote:If my memory serves correctly (and it rarely does), 10th level was "name level" in AD&D. It was also the uppermost level in B/X. BECMI expanded the levels upwards but 10th was the dividing point between roaming around as a Fighter and making a choice between becoming a Knight, Avenger or (can't remember). So it was also BECMI's "name level" to an extent.

Close.

9th level was name level - which was the level where you attracted followers and were supposed to build a stronghold.

goodmangames wrote:My two-weapon mechanic makes use of funky dice. It's contingent on Agility score but, in short, the two-weapon warrior will generally be rolling d16+d14, or perhaps d20+d16, rather than two d20's. Of course they apply the same attack modifier to it, instead of a -4 to the first / -6 to the second like in traditional D&D. So far in playtests the two-weapon fighters are better at fighting peons but less effective at fighting big bad guys (can't hit higher AC's), which is on par with traditional D&D, but the game play goes faster because there's less math (add the same numbers to two dice rolls).

Neat way of handling two weapon wielding, I like it, and the Mighty Deed of Arms is a sound idea, as you say it doesn't limit the players to certain actions/feats, plus it makes playing fighters more interesting and more like Appendix N warriors. No spell-like powers -hurrah !

You know what always bugged me about feats in 3.x? It always seemed to be a list of things I would never be able to do. I saw it as restrictive... I'd get what, 6 to 10 feats off of a list of 40? Weak. And I always saw things that I thought to myself, "Whoa, that'd be sweet to pull of in a fight." But of course you weren't allowed, it wasn't in the "rules".

I think this rule looks cool. And it seemed to work well in play too... Our barbarian was a machine, and that extra dice helped him quite a few times. And in terms of the Mighty Deeds of Arms, we used it to good affect when trying to dislodge a chest held in the arms of a giant. Great stuff!

That's the things I like most about this rule, it allows a ton of situational freedom. What feat could we have possibly utilized in order to pull off what I just described w/ the giant? I'm sure there's something out there....but only the person who took it could do it. Not the person who actually thought of it. This forces creativity in the game, which is pure awesome sauce.

And btw, I'm sure my experience w/ AD&D is way out of the norm, but we got our characters up to 15th level. No lie. Same characters from 7th grade through 12th. And then in university we bumped them to 18th for an "Epic Fest", where we traveled to hell in order to rescue a prisoner held by Asmodeous. What fun that was. But overall, I agree that 9th for traditional play is probably a decent guideline. Although, that fest sure was a hoot.

mntnjeff wrote:You know what always bugged me about feats in 3.x? It always seemed to be a list of things I would never be able to do. I saw it as restrictive... I'd get what, 6 to 10 feats off of a list of 40? Weak. And I always saw things that I thought to myself, "Whoa, that'd be sweet to pull of in a fight." But of course you weren't allowed, it wasn't in the "rules".

I hate the cliche' but I can't say "THIS!!" strongly enough to agree with your point. It boggled my mind how you could easily have a situation where a character could do nothing combat oriented while riding a mount unless you devoted three or four feats to it. In a similar case, if there was some epic ability you wanted your character to have, you had to pre-plan his feat selection starting at level one to make sure you could get the feat you really really wanted at 15th level. And the end result? A character with an awesome ability that was usable in a handful of situations. It felt like you were helicopter parenting your character, deciding his future for him before he had ever cast his first spell or swung his first blade.

mntnjeff wrote:And btw, I'm sure my experience w/ AD&D is way out of the norm, but we got our characters up to 15th level. No lie. Same characters from 7th grade through 12th. And then in university we bumped them to 18th for an "Epic Fest", where we traveled to hell in order to rescue a prisoner held by Asmodeous. What fun that was. But overall, I agree that 9th for traditional play is probably a decent guideline. Although, that fest sure was a hoot.

It may be out of the norm, but there are always going to be players that want to take a PC from 1 to godhood, even if it does take several years. I would like to see the game accommodate those players with out breaking horribly like 3.x does.

Perhaps when the beta comes out, I will run an adventure starting at 18th level. It will be cool to see how the system breaks, or doesn't, at that extreme. Maybe I could do a level 30 Immortals game as well.

High level pc's who achieve immortal status is definitely a D&D thing, but is it an Appendix N thing? How tough was Conan really in D&D terms? He certainly wasn't killing Set. Elric? - pretty lame without his artifact level sword. Anybody in LotR? Yeah, Gandalf beat a Balrog but he started out as an immortal. He was obviously the dm's Mary Sue npc. And Legolas was only epic in the movie.

mshensley wrote:High level pc's who achieve immortal status is definitely a D&D thing, but is it an Appendix N thing? How tough was Conan really in D&D terms? He certainly wasn't killing Set. Elric? - pretty lame without his artifact level sword. Anybody in LotR? Yeah, Gandalf beat a Balrog but he started out as an immortal. He was obviously the dm's Mary Sue npc. And Legolas was only epic in the movie.

I disagree slightly. Gandalf did not reach immortal status until he became "Gandalf the White" after defeating the Balrog. It says in the book that the Balrog almost killed him during the fight, IIRC. Gandalf is not a Mary Sue. Also, Moorcock's "The Eternal Champion" is definitely an immortal being, even if he doesn't remember all of his incarnations. Elric is one of those incarnations. Also Elric is a fairly powerful sorcerer and summoner.

mshensley wrote:High level pc's who achieve immortal status is definitely a D&D thing, but is it an Appendix N thing? How tough was Conan really in D&D terms? He certainly wasn't killing Set. Elric? - pretty lame without his artifact level sword. Anybody in LotR? Yeah, Gandalf beat a Balrog but he started out as an immortal. He was obviously the dm's Mary Sue npc. And Legolas was only epic in the movie.

Re: The immortal thing... I guess it's all about how/when someone started out with D&D. I remember guys who would talk about how they had an umpteenth level Paladin in AD&D and how his group killed Thor out of Deities & Demigods and such. But I've never been in a game like that. And I have no knowledge of how factual those statements were. These days those guys' 30-year-younger clones tell me about how they have a hybrid Tiefling-Dragonborn-Warlock-Avenger who paragon classed into Bloody Awful Stereotype and killed Orcus. I mean, I converse with guys who talk about things like that at the local gaming store. But I've never witnessed it first hand.

When I got started, the goal of D&D was to survive to 3rd level. After that, it was to make it to "name" level and then get a castle. We were lucky to get a magic sword.

<tangent>
And we rolled all our dice one mile uphill on both sides of the screen in the pouring rain and we were happy to do so. Man, sometimes I feel old...
</tangent>

I don't recall "immortality" entering the conversation until BECMI. And not engaging in anything like "epic" play until 3e. I remember starting a game of 2e as "10th level" and we all felt that was novel and wrong at the same time.

Maybe I've had nothing but skinflint DM's. But I've played in hundreds of games with dozens of groups in almost as many states across the continental US for over a quarter century. And I've never run across a D&D group that played either as "immortals" or with the goal of epic-level immortality in mind. And I've played with some groups who've had the same concurrent core members playing 3-4 times a month since the late '70s. We're talking guys who used minis and string!

Not saying that the Endgame of Immortality wasn't the case for some groups out there. I've heard about it often enough to believe that some people do it. But I've never come across it.

My biggest beef with D&D levels is the breakage that begins around 12-15th level and then progressively gets worse. And that really only became apparent to me while playing 3e -- where it became common for a DM to tell me to create PCs at 5th, 10th or higher level. Back in the day, we only started at Level 1.

mshensley wrote:High level pc's who achieve immortal status is definitely a D&D thing, but is it an Appendix N thing? How tough was Conan really in D&D terms? He certainly wasn't killing Set. Elric? - pretty lame without his artifact level sword. Anybody in LotR? Yeah, Gandalf beat a Balrog but he started out as an immortal. He was obviously the dm's Mary Sue npc. And Legolas was only epic in the movie.

Re: The immortal thing... I guess it's all about how/when someone started out with D&D. I remember guys who would talk about how they had an umpteenth level Paladin in AD&D and how his group killed Thor out of Deities & Demigods and such. But I've never been in a game like that. And I have no knowledge of how factual those statements were. These days those guys' 30-year-younger clones tell me about how they have a hybrid Tiefling-Dragonborn-Warlock-Avenger who paragon classed into Bloody Awful Stereotype and killed Orcus. I mean, I converse with guys who talk about things like that at the local gaming store. But I've never witnessed it first hand.

When I got started, the goal of D&D was to survive to 3rd level. After that, it was to make it to "name" level and then get a castle. We were lucky to get a magic sword.

<tangent>
And we rolled all our dice one mile uphill on both sides of the screen in the pouring rain and we were happy to do so. Man, sometimes I feel old...
</tangent>

I don't recall "immortality" entering the conversation until BECMI. And not engaging in anything like "epic" play until 3e. I remember starting a game of 2e as "10th level" and we all felt that was novel and wrong at the same time.

Maybe I've had nothing but skinflint DM's. But I've played in hundreds of games with dozens of groups in almost as many states across the continental US for over a quarter century. And I've never run across a D&D group that played either as "immortals" or with the goal of epic-level immortality in mind. And I've played with some groups who've had the same concurrent core members playing 3-4 times a month since the late '70s. We're talking guys who used minis and string!

Not saying that the Endgame of Immortality wasn't the case for some groups out there. I've heard about it often enough to believe that some people do it. But I've never come across it.

My biggest beef with D&D levels is the breakage that begins around 12-15th level and then progressively gets worse. And that really only became apparent to me while playing 3e -- where it became common for a DM to tell me to create PCs at 5th, 10th or higher level. Back in the day, we only started at Level 1.

First off, LOL to the <tangent>.

I haven't read all of the Appendix N stuff. However, it would really surprise me if there were no occurrences of characters aspiring to Godhood and/or Immortality then going out and trying to achieve it. I am sure it is not a common theme, however.

I understand and agree with the "this is a Pre-D&D RPG" idea. But realize that many of those "Pre-D&D" ideas are what made D&D the game that it was in the beginning. So, I guess I feel the "that is a D&D idea" argument against PCs becoming immortal to be a flawed argument. After all, the idea did not originate in BECMI. Most people won't get that far. Some will want to. Let them.

That is why I want to run a few very high level adventures. I want DCC RPG to stand up at that extreme. I don't necessarily want to play there. (I prefer low level play.) But, I would rather not hear "It is just like 3e. It breaks at high levels" when the game starts being discussed on other Forums.